Epping astrologer's business success in the stars

Friday

May 27, 2011 at 2:00 AM

EPPING — When Maria Simms was a young artist living in San Francisco, in the 1970s, she began looking for answers in her life. She investigated astrology, and admits she spent her first few months trying to disprove it.

KATHLEEN D. BAILEY

EPPING — When Maria Simms was a young artist living in San Francisco, in the 1970s, she began looking for answers in her life. She investigated astrology, and admits she spent her first few months trying to disprove it.

"The more time I spent with it, the more I decided, 'There must be something to this,'" she recalled.

That "something" has brought her a career as a professional astrologer, several published books on astrology, dozens of illustrations and covers for astrology books, and work heading up an astrological publishing company and chart service — twice. She runs her business, ACS Computing Service/Starcraft, out of an Epping office suite.

Simms got to know Neil Michelsen, the first person to calculate astrological charts by computer and the founder of ACS/Starcraft. Michelsen was a systems technician with IBM who figured out how to calculate charts on the enormous mainframe computers of the time. This was huge, Simms explained — at the time, everyone had to do the tables by hand.

Simms, meanwhile, found herself in demand to do workshops and lectures. Since her only formal education was in fine arts painting, she joined the American Federation of Astrologers and completed the group's certification process in 1980. She began writing, speaking and private consulting. Her first book, "Twelve Wings of the Eagle," was published by Starcraft in 1988.

Michelsen invited her to move to San Diego to be art director for his publishing company. They eventually married, and when Michelsen died of cancer, Simms became chief executive officer of the publishing firm.

"It was quite an experience — I stretched more than I ever thought was possible," she recalled.

She ran around to every seminar she could find, taking a crash course in financial management, marketing, balance sheets, personnel. Responsible for between 18 and 20 employees, she crammed her head full of business knowledge "and got a good accountant," she said with a smile.

But after eight years, Simms had done very little art or writing. She consulted with Michelsen's children, and they agreed to sell the company. Simms married New Hampshire businessman Jim Jossick, moved back East, and concentrated on her art again, joining the Seacoast Artists Association.

The new owners of Michelsen's former firm drifted from its original purpose, didn't manage it well, and ended up owing three years' worth of royalties to authors, Simms said. Frustrated, she obtained permission to update the firm's cornerstone piece, Michelsen's "Ephemeris," a listing of where every planet in the solar system will be at midnight every day of the 21st century.

With Jossick's support, Simms bought the company back and brought it to New Hampshire. "I felt responsible," she said, "to see these books preserved." She reopened on the second floor of a building Jossick owns, with two full-time employees. The full-timers, Simonne Murphy and Tom Canfield, are responsible for the chart service, in which customers provide their data and receive a computer-generated astrological chart.

Since reopening, she has published 25 books, either updated classics or new works. She uses a print-on-demand service, Lightning Source. The firm also provides "interpretive reports" of various aspects of a person's life, and can bind them like books or send them as a PDF file. They also market software for people doing their own charts, and note cards designed by Simms.

She found her latest author under her own nose, her assistant Tom Canfield, who wrote the just-published "Yankee Doodle Discord." Canfield, a history buff, researched American history and produced a walk through U.S. history in light of the newly discovered planet, Eris.

"It's a good read," Simms said. Her cover design features a shapely woman in a Greek goddess outfit, topped off by a Revolutionary tri-cornered hat and jacket.

Why has astrology survived for thousands of years?

"It stays because it works," Simms said. "Anyone who gets into it seriously, not frivolously, will find it has validity."

Simms shies away from what she calls "deterministic language."

"There is no proof," she said, "that the planets are causing events. But there is synchronicity. You will see patterns in the sky and they relate to what's going on."

For example, she said, the planet Uranus symbolically represents a situation that is "upset, explosive, rebellious," and Pluto represents upheavals and transformative times. The two planets moved closer this spring, about the time the earthquake happened in Japan, she said.

But she doesn't predict. "I say, 'these are the patterns coming up in your future.' That empowers a person to make decisions — you always have a choice."

Has she ever told a woman she would meet the proverbial tall, dark stranger? Simms laughed. "Not that I recall," she said.

For information, call ACS/Starcraft at 734-4300.

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